


Cosmetic Passion

by ItsClydeBitches



Category: Preacher (TV)
Genre: Angst, Background Jesse/Tulip, Character Study, Gen, Healing, Introspection, Makeup, three shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-15 03:09:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8040127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsClydeBitches/pseuds/ItsClydeBitches
Summary: Makeup is a more personal thing to Jesse than most would understand. It's a tool. A weapon. (Written for the prompt: "Jesse + makeup")





	Cosmetic Passion

**Author's Note:**

> Shout-out to the very nice anon who was like, 'hi you haven't written much lately' and I'm like, 'lol you make an excellent point, let's try to fix that.' So this is me fixing it. Hope you enjoy! <3

The first time arose out of violence, beauty from gore—a tradeoff that Jesse would become intimately familiar with as he grew older.

 

In Annville’s schoolyard, Andy Lockett managed to cut a hard right across Jesse’s cheek, bringing blood and a whole rainbow of colors to the surface. He got a series of kicks for his trouble—rocks pooled into the toe of Jesse’s sneaker, Andy’s limp form tied with strips of shirt to the fence, there for the teacher to find—and Jesse walked home with the left side of his face turned towards the shadows.

 

His dad didn’t think he knew, but Jesse wasn’t stupid.

 

Only the slightest piece of the church had once belonged to his mother: a latched box hidden beneath his Dad’s bed, the whole underside clear of dust from a desire to look at it again and again. This desire remained, despite the fact that it never brought her back, and Jesse already knew the contents well enough to dream of them. He knew them more intimately than the plains of his own face.

 

That night he only took what lay on top, the compact, and within the compact the silky dirt that perfectly matched Jesse’s skin tone. Like a tinted window where he could see Mom, but Mom couldn’t see him, Jesse stared into the accompanying mirror. By the time Reverend Custer got home, Jesse’s bruise had seemingly disappeared. There was no evidence of a fight and no questions to answer over dinner. Instead Jesse mixed his peas with his potatoes and enjoyed his own reflection, caught now and then in the depths of his plate. He liked the the pull of pain every time he opened his mouth too; the faint, delicate shimmer of concealer on his cheek. It was a secret that still _felt_ like a secret, even though he wore it plain as day.

 

Jesse kept his Mom’s makeup box close until his twelfth birthday, when two men kicked in the door and dragged his Dad back outside. The shot they let off threw Jesse into a cotton-filled world. The dirt staining his _Dad’s_ cheek... that wasn’t beautiful at all.

 

He’d held the box when he’d hidden beneath the bed. The men had left him that at least.

 

So Jesse cleaned his Dad as best he could. He applied makeup where it was most needed, granting his Dad a kind physical peace before he bothered calling the cops.

 

Then Jesse threw the box in the trash.

 

***

 

He found replacements over the years, because he could no more stay away from the brush than he could the gun or the bottle. They were all vices in their way, and ironically the tubes Jesse hid were more dangerous than any Glock shoved under his pillow. Only one was acceptable in the great state of Texas. Only one was likely to misfire and get him killed.

 

Tulip found out in the manner she always did—hard and fast, unpredictable in her judgment. There was a stately house off in the distance calling to them, not so much due to the treasures inside, but because of the state-of-the-art alarm system that Tulip’s hands were itching to dismantle. Few back in Annville knew how good she was with a monitor, keyboard, and twenty minutes devotion, which was why Jesse cackled Tulip just shot the damn control box, filling their ears with the shrieking _whoop whoop_ of the alarm. They had ten minutes, top. Twice what they needed, really.

 

Tulip smashed her way through the dining room, picking up everything silver and gold that she didn’t tread underfoot. Jesse raced up the stairs and located the bedroom, more eager to find a score of the embarrassing variety (something to shove unceremoniously in Tulip’s face, to try playing coy about, maybe to even _use_ ), but instead stopped dead, overtaken by the right side of the room.

 

The wife owned a stunning vanity table. Covered in makeup.

 

Tulip found it. The small black pouch Jesse hid in their main bag, stuffed full of nothing they could sell and everything he wanted. She pulled eyeliner out like she’d un-sheath a sword. Tulip wielded the lipstick with just as much deadly accuracy, pointed his way. Jesse wondered in that moment if she’d cut him... but she taught him to fight instead.

 

Up until then makeup had been invisible armor. It covered and hid. Then Tulip outlined his mouth and his eyes, turning them into weapons. Within seconds Jesse had a gaze sharper than any knife. His words, through defined lips, had more kick than his gun.

 

“It enhances who you already are,” Tulip murmured, rubbing a little shimmer into his cheeks. “If you paint yourself like something scary, Jesse, you’ll become it, and there ain’t nothing more scary in this world than saying ‘fuck you’ to the rules.”

 

He kept that in mind. Every time Jesse had a mugshot of contoured lines, or he leaned close enough for someone to see the eyeshadow beneath his ski-mask. Jesse and Tulip kept the black pouch between them, night after night and job after job. They painted themselves into fierce things that the world had no use for.

 

Until Carlos. A bend at the waist and an agonized cry.

 

When Jesse went back to Annville, he left the black bag behind.

 

***

 

Taking it back was a bloody, horrifying mess.

 

His face had been clear for months now and Jesse couldn’t help but fixate on that contradiction, the hypocrisy of it: that he could look pure and clean while every other part of him—the intangible and the characteristic—was something unholy to behold.

 

Jesse’s skin was smooth. Cass’ bubbled up like something gone wrong in the oven.

 

He was already on his knees before Jesse, his voice wobbling higher as the screams tore at his vocal cords. It had happened so fast that Jesse was left frozen, his mind trying to catch up to the ‘how’ of his friend spontaneously lighting on fire. Though of course, it hadn’t been spontaneous. Not really. Jesse had seen the sun touch down on lean shoulders, the initial smoke, the crack as bone and sinew were revealed to him.

 

Cass planted face-first in the dirt and thrashed there. It was that motion (the fish out of water, a snared hare) that kicked Jesse out of his stupor. Cass wasn’t just flailing. He was trying to _bury himself for cover_.

 

With a curse Jesse hauled up the fire extinguisher, somehow only just realizing it was there… like everything before Cass’ burning had been neatly severed from his mind. Cut and left gaping. There was nothing now but the hole.

 

So Jesse tried filling it. He let loose a white foam like snow in summer, relentless and unnatural, covering Cass completely. Already though it began to melt away and Jesse cursed again, dragging him into the shade of a tree.

 

Rancid, nauseating textures. Cass’ skin sloshed between Jesse’s fingers and bits adhered to his palms, sticking there from the foam. Chemicals assaulted them—the crispy scent of cooked meat. Beneath the tree Cass moaned something unintelligible (though Jesse’s mind filled in the blanks: _padre, padre_ ) and it took him a long, dizzying moment to realize that he was making similar noises back.

 

Jesse fled to the kitchen.

 

There he met everything he’d long expected to receive: Fear. Anger. Disgust. When Emily left, Jesse had nothing left but to turn to his own two hands.

 

They were smudged. The literal bits of Cass were gone now—wiped on the tree trunk, the back of Jesse’s pants—but tangible smoke remained, dark-grey soot waiting at his fingertips.

 

Jesse stood with a clatter. There was a mirror in the church living room and he stumbled there, hands already shaking. Jesse had to steady them as he swept them across his eyes, darkening the lids. He wasn’t careful in his application. It didn’t matter. For once, there was no one else to see.

 

In seconds it wasn’t the same Jesse who looked back at him. 

 

_Paint something different. Cover up the problem._

 

There was still a creature (a man?) a _creature_ writhing outside his door… but really, what else was new? This, in its way, felt old. 

 

So Jesse sat. Wearing Cass' agony as war paint, he finished his meal.


End file.
